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Today’s connected customer has become very sophisticated, very quickly. They want highly personalised marketing - that leverages predictive intelligence - and are willing to trade their personal data in exchange for it. This is the huge opportunity identified by Salesforce’s “State of the Connected Customer
” report. Are you ready to seize this opportunity today?

Data for personalisation

Deeply unsatisfied with the traditional mass-marketing approach, customers have become aware that a better experience is possible and they are willing to help brands provide that personalised marketing experience by handing over their personal data. But conversely, those unable to provide a 1-to-1 marketing experience will lose out.

Not every brand is ready or able to deliver on a personalised marketing approach, or harvest the data necessary for that. Those brands are under performing in the marketplace because customers are turning their backs on them.

Salesforce Research interviewed more than 7,000 consumers and business buyers around the world to see what expectations they had of brands. The results were exciting for those companies in a position to capitalise on this next-generation landscape; but are equally worrying for those who aren’t yet in a position to do so.

The headline number revealed by the research is that an impressive 57 per cent of consumers are willing to hand over personal data if it means a more personal relationship with brands - including personalised marketing offers or discounts.

58 per cent of consumers say this kind of relationship is a very important consideration in the buying decision.

However, worrying for some brands, 52 per cent say they are likely to switch brands if a company isn’t able to have a more personalised relationship.

What does the future have in store?

This reality extends beyond the present too. Customers are embracing the concept of predictive intelligence as well. The report reveals that 62 per cent believe it to be acceptable for a brands to make predictive recommendations based on previous purchases. So they are happy for organisations to use data about their spending habits in order to make educated guesses about what they might want next.

But the ability to engage this kind of customer in this way requires incredibly sophisticated marketing technology. Without it, this entire opportunity not only passes by, but business is lost because of the inability to talk to the customer the way they want.

For instance, the 2017 State of Marketing report found that 49 per cent of high performing marketing teams were using predictive intelligence to facilitate this kind of dialogue with their customers. Only five per cent of the under performing teams were using this kind of technology.

That’s a very stark difference between those being most successful, and those having the least success. That’s why top marketers are 3.6 times more likely than underperformers to agree that this kind of predictive technology is helping them succeed.

Other characteristics discovered by the State of Marketing Report about those top performing teams are that they tend to work very closely with IT and are very data-driven in their decision making.

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